With the entity formerly known as Twitter vanishing in the rearview mirror, here are two articles from the early days, when we wondered what it was and what it might become. A global conversation? A mosaic of communities and interests? Perhaps you remember.
If you could choose one superpower—to fly, or to be invisible—which would you pick? If you were invisible, what would you do? Dreams of invisibility in a world of ubiquitous surveillance.
From beginning to end, experts saw through Buckminster Fuller’s ideas and theories. Why did so many people come under his spell?
Stephen Hawking surrounded himself with a cloud of myth, made himself into a commercial product and an international brand. The celebrity eclipsed the scientist. There’s a scientific story to tell, and most of Hawking’s later life served to conceal it.
First it was a heavenly body—a beacon, or a world, a place where no one could possibly go. Then, from 1969 to 1972, twelve people landed there in spaceships. On behalf of all humanity, they said. Is it time to go back?
Your favorite time traveler may be missing from my chronicle, Time Travel: A History. I'm sorry about that. Some readers are already pointing out the omissions. Consider the case of Alley Oop.
Let us all—wherever and whenever—live on what the world’s timekeepers call Universal Time, or UTC (though “Earth time” might be less presumptuous). When it’s noon in Greenwich, England, let it be 12:00 everywhere. No more resetting the clocks. No more wondering what time it is in Peoria or Petropavlovsk. No more befuddled headaches crossing the International Dateline from Tuesday back into Monday.
What was the "most characteristic feature of the thought" of the early 20th century?